Hej und Tschau

German's must clearly have a love of conquering and making things their own. As my number of Deutsch friends increase, I've been texting a bit in german. People do say hey and ciao here quite a lot - so I figured the spelling of such words would be the same as how we spell them.

Whatever about adopting a j instead of a y for 'Hey', it's just wrong spelling a strongly rooted Italian word like 'ciao' as 'Tschau'.

Swing Tanzen - Eins, zwei, drei, vier, funf, sechs....

My legs are killing me and they have been ever since Friday night.

Last week I agreed that I'd go swing dancing with one of my flat mates - but because I understand bits and pieces of german I generally end up saying 'Ja' more than I should. So what I did not realise I had done was that I agreed to go to a swing dancing lesson by myself and then she would follow me along later with her boyfriend for the swing dancing party.

Going on my own? Ok, alarm bells. I was totally not cool with that concept one bit. I figured I had already agreed to go so I had better go to this lesson and suss it all out.

When I got to the dance school everyone was all paired up and working the dance floor. I really felt like turning around - it was bad enough thinking that I'd make an ass of myself when I tried to dance and even worse again that I had no dance partner.

When the lesson started I had a few awkward steps or 'treppen' but then I got paired up with Berlin's Fabian who set me straight. Swing dancing is piss easy to do for girls since it's the guys who have to take the lead - I really surprised myself going round the floor doing the Lindy Hop. My downfall is that I can't dance slow - I just could not get my legs to move at the right speed - they were in double beat mode - which is probably why they are still sore.

Should I go again next week? Maybe.

German group - The Holloys

Came across this group called The Holloys at work today - much Liebe for them so far <3
They play on Saturday night here - think I might trot along to it.

Wort des Tages

So I don't know if you know this but eh...they speak German here in Berlin. Although, if you let a single english word slip out of your mouth, be prepared for an answer in english. Lots of native english speakers live in Berlin and never learn anything more than the basic 'Hallo, wie geht's, wie viele, ja, neee, gut' vocabulary group.
I'm fortunate enough to be living with people who will actually speak German with me - I don't understand everything they say and have had embarassing trip ups along the way - like at the weekend when I was trying to say something about the World Cup...I called it the Welt Tasse - which just means a big cup that the whole world would drink from. It's actually called the Weltmeisterschaft here.
So now I'm wondering if they have a saying to the equivalent of 'Dance your socks off' - I think I've probably gotten this all wrong - but I wrote it up on our blackboard in the house today to see if it raises any eyebrows.
This is what I'm trying to say: We should dance our socks off and make some noise at the festivities in Kreuzberg this weekend.
I've a Word of the Day, or Wort des Tages here - just to try and keep picking up bits and pieces. My use of prepositions is nonsensical at the minute I fear.

One week in Berlin

 Guten Tag,

After a shaky start to the week, with my lack of friends in Berlin, things started to go uphill and haven't stopped doing so since Wednesday.

There's no point sitting around, feeling sorry for yourself and uninspired in a new big and crusty city, so I got myself onto the Toytown website, went to a cinema club on Tuesday night, a tandem or language exchange night on Wednesday, enjoyed some dancing, dancing in the discotheque on the same night in an old power plant, the Berghain, can't really remember Thursday since I spent most of the day in bed, on Friday I got a job as an intern with Ex Berliner, the english speaking magazine in Berlin, after that my housemates invited their friends over and we set up lots of music things and made some beats, went to a bar lastnight, and bought myself a bike today at the flea market.

Not too bad for one week here eh? I start my internship tomorrow morning, so I'll be testing out the bike then on the way to work!

Photo Time:
Me and my bike on the street I live on - bought for €45!

Friday night fun: